Legend helped elaborate on the concerns. He noted to one of Conkin’s supporters that the bogus Pizzagate scandal “almost got someone killed” — the concern is that a Conkin devotee would believe the unsubstantiated claims at face value and threaten the couple. Legend vowed to sue Conkin if she kept making her claims.

The conspiracist deleted her posts and backtracked in a bid to avoid a lawsuit, claiming that Teigen and Legend “run in circle [sic]” with pedophiles and that they “could be victims themselves.” However, that didn’t help her case — Teigen said she still had the evidence and vowed that Conkin would be “going to court.”

We’ve asked Twitter for its comment. From a cursory glimpse, though, it looks like Conkin was a prime candidate for losing verification: her claims violated rules against “inciting or engaging in harassment.” Many of her supporters lapped up the accusations without checking the facts, and both Teigen and Legend have been harassed as a result. Twitter has previously said that it doesn’t want verification to serve as a tacit endorsement of vile behavior, and this appears to qualify.

With that said, the incident highlights a familiar pattern for Twitter: it tends to respond to an outcry when celebrities or the press draw attention to the issue. There are concerns that others might continue to abuse their verified status unless Twitter is more proactive.

Israel’s governing Likud party has approved a draft resolution urging its leaders to formally annex large parts of the occupied West Bank, a move that is expected to further anger Palestinians.

Members of the Likud Central Committee voted on Sunday in favour of imposing Israeli sovereignty over illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

The resolution is non-binding for cabinet ministers but carries some political force within the party of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister. 

Netanyahu himself did not attend the central commitee’s meeting.

Arab members of parliament told Al Jazeera that if the resolution were to go to the Israeli Knesset in its current form, that would signal the end to the peace process.

“It would really mean that there is no more attempt to try to find a two-state solution to the crisis,” Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Jamjoom, reporting from West Jerusalem, said.

“We also spoke with many analysts, who said that … there is no way that such an inflammatory resolution would actually get to the Knesset in its current form,” he added, noting that were “many more questions at this hour than answers” about what is going to happen next.

Israeli settlements are considered illegal under international law, and are seen as a major stumbling block to peace efforts as they are built on land the Palestinians see as part of their future state.

West Jerusalem was seized by Israel during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, when more than 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from historic Palestine, referred to by Palestinians as the Nakba (catastrophe) when Israel was officially founded.

Israel subsequently occupied and annexed the eastern part of the city after its military victory in the 1967 war, but its control over East Jerusalem has never been recognised by the international community.

Palestinian leaders want occupied East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state, while Israel says the city cannot be divided.

‘Cynical political ploy’

Ahead of the vote, analysts told Al Jazeera that they saw the Likud central committe’s vote as a cynical political calculus to rally the party faithful.

The vote “is not binding and it’s not even relevant”, Mitchell Barak, an analyst at Kevoon Global Research told Al Jazeera.

“It’s just the prime minister’s right of centre party just trying to make a policy statement, which really is meaningless, and … just getting ready the drumbeat of election,” he added.

“They’re just trying to shore up their popularity on the right.”

The vote, however, did come at an especially tense time following the controversial US decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

US President Donald Trump’s move on December 6 sparked deadly protests in the occupied Palestinian territories and major rallies in support of the Palestinians across the Muslim world.

A resounding majority of United Nations member states also defied unprecedented threats by the US to declare the US’ recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital “null and void”.

“Whatever does happen next, this is a tense time and this vote may add another element of uncertainty,” said Jamjoom.

There’s no mention of when a polished version of HQ will reach Android, although Intermedia has been scrambling to fix bugs to get the app ready ahead of its public test.

HQ is ultimately a simple game at its heart: it’s an elimination-based challenge where progressively harder questions whittle down the contestant pool from hundreds of thousands to just a handful. The allure is the live, schedule-based nature of gameplay. Instead of interacting with faceless software by yourself, you’re participating in a shared experience with a real host (usually fan favorite Scott Rogowsky). And of course, the possibility of winning cash adds real stakes that wouldn’t be present if you were simply competing for points or bragging rights. There’s no telling whether or not HQ will last once the novelty wears off, but the addition of Android could help its chances.

While the iOS app remains a step behind its Android sibling and still can’t support multiple accounts, the company has something for Apple users, as well. Telegram is finally giving you a way to change what your app looks like under the new Appearance setting. The iOS version now has several themes to choose from, including two dark “night time” themes and a “day” theme with colors you can tweak. That’s not quite as useful as having support for more than one account, but fingers crossed that themes’ arrival on iOS means Android’s other features will soon follow.

Unlike the other two in Telegram’s update list, both mobile platforms share version 4.7’s last new feature: quick replies. You can simply swipe left on a friend’s text bubble to write a reply specifically for that part of the conversation, so you can type up multiple responses without confusing yourself and your friend.

It’s been pretty easy to point at Twitter and, with each quarterly moment when it discloses its financial guts, let out a long exasperated sigh.

Twitter since going public at a now in retrospect astounding valuation has for much of its public life been quite the disappointment to Wall Street. But then something interesting happened in the back half of 2017: it went on a rather spectacular run, and though ending on a bit of a slump, it looks like it could finish the year up more than 25 percent — which, by Twitter terms, is pretty good.

Much of that is thanks to a (finally) good report in October this year and a blessing from a Wall Street firm, but we could potentially chalk up getting to those events to some actual things Twitter has done. The product updates haven’t been absolutely transformative (like the earth-shattering bump to a 280-character limit per tweet), but since the introduction of the algorithmic timeline last year, it would seem that Twitter is getting slightly less allergic to changes to its core product — even if it alienates part of its very loud user base.

Twitter has also seemingly begun taking more action when it comes to enforcing new rules around harassment and abuse, a problem that has been hounding the company for years and is even more visible this year. Earlier this month it said it would begin enforcing new rules around how it handles hateful conduct and abusive behavior. Twitter’s strategy here has been often opaque, and while it’ll take a while to reach some kind of middle ground, it’s actually doing stuff.

And doing stuff, it seems, is currently enough for Twitter to figure out how to get a nice up-and-to-the-right-ish chart like this one:

While these stocks — especially volatile ones — will swing often, sometimes the general idea is to try to gauge the future potential of the company. For Twitter, that means it’s going to have to figure out a way to re-ignite growth and get users coming back and using the platform. It has some very deep core issues, and sometimes seems to flip-flop on its own actions and have troubles communicating. But if Twitter is somehow able to right this ship, it may have an opportunity to get that growth engine moving again.

Most executives will probably give the boilerplate “we are committed to delivering long-term value for shareholders” argument for stock swings in the near term, but those swings are really significant for the company. It’s the closest thing to a near-term public barometer for the company’s success, which means it does a lot for employee morale. And it also can be significant for attracting talent, as the company may need to offer more generous compensation packages to rip people away from companies that are high-growth or well-established.

Twitter, going forward, it appears, needs to keep doing stuff. It’s made a lot of moves in the video space in addition to building business tools — like a video-centric ad format. And it certainly has done that to some extent, trying to extend its pitch as a real-time communications platform to video. It needs to continue cracking down on harassment and abuse if it’s going to attract new, more casual users. It needs to keep making tweaks to its products even under the risk of alienating some of its users to make it more user-friendly. In short, there’s a lot of stuff to be done.

What’s arguably the richest part of this whole story, however, is that Twitter now has roughly the same market cap as Snap following its back-of-the-year run. Hovering at around $18 billion, it’s the tale of two runs here: Twitter found some way to turn its story around, and Snap is still having some pretty dramatic issues telling its story to Wall Street. Both have the specter of user growth over them, but somehow Twitter has been able to at least throw a rock in the opposite direction to get the attention of investors temporarily.

Will Twitter get its wish of finally escaping the MAU? Probably not. But for now, it looks like Dorsey and the rest of them have figured out at least some small way to sell the promise of Twitter to Wall Street and get them on board for the time being.

Featured Image: Yana Paskova/Bloomberg/Getty Images

4K is the most straightforward step forward: It offers four times as many pixels as 1080p. But while that might sound exciting, it’s not a noticeable leap unless you’re sitting very close to a large TV set. HDR, on the other hand, is an upgrade you definitely can’t miss. It lets you see both brighter and darker elements in an image. Shots of the sun or huge explosions end up looking almost as vibrant as they do in real life. (In fact, on high-end TVs the brightness can sometimes make you squint your eyes.) And while being able to see darker images might not sound exciting, it’s a big help for things like Daredevil’s nighttime fight scenes.

The benefit of wide color gamut support, or WCG, is immediately noticeably when you’re watching something like Planet Earth 2, which shows off seemingly every naturally occurring shade. Until now, home video formats could only display a limited amount of colors. But with WCG, all of the primary pigments — red, green and blue — are bolder and more realistic than ever.

So what makes things better for 4K and HDR next year? The most obvious answer: The TVs supporting those new formats will come even further down in price. Previously, you’d have to spend close to $1,000 to get a decent 50-inch TV. But today, one of the most widely recommended 55-inch models, TCL’s P series, goes for just $650. And if you don’t mind skimping a bit on picture quality, you can find already similarly sized sets for even less.

That also means that large TVs are becoming more affordable. Vizio’s mid-range M series line starts at $1,000 for the 65-inch model, and you can go all the way up to 75 inches for $2,000. That’s the sort of TV you previously could only dream of — not something normal people could buy. By next year, many consumers might consider a 65-inch set as their default upgrade, and I wouldn’t be surprised if TVs beyond 70-inches become more popular.

And even if you’re not just trying to stuff the biggest screen possible into your home, once high-end technology, like OLED, is also becoming more affordable. Not surprisingly, OLED is the upgrade videophiles are really excited about. It offers more contrast than LCD sets and better black levels, plus it doesn’t suffer from motion blurring. And if you care about home decor, OLED sets can be shockingly thin. LG’s new W series are as thick as two quarters stacked on top of each other — something that also requires them to be wall mounted, since it’s physically impossible to balance them with a traditional table-mounted stand.

At least two protesters have been killed in rare anti-government protests in Iran, according to a semi-official Iranian news agency. 

The Mehr news agency said on Sunday that at least two people died on Saturday night in Dorud, a city in western Iran.

Habibollah Khojastepour, security deputy of the governor of Lorestan province, said the presence of “agitators” prevented a peaceful end to the protest, according to Mehr.

Khojastepour said neither police nor security forces fired at the protesters. He did not provide a reason for their deaths.

News of the fatalities came as Interior Minister Abdolrahman Rahmani Fazli warned demonstrators against disruptive behavior.

“Those who damage public property, disrupt order and break the law must be responsible for their behaviour and pay the price,” Abdolrahman Rahmani Fazli said on state television early on Sunday.

Iranians began protesting on Thursday in the second city of Masshad, rallying against high prices.

The rallies have since gained momentum, spread to other cities, and are described as the largest in nearly a decade.

Saturday marked the third day of anti-government protests across Iran, when students and police clashed in Tehran.

Videos posted on Twitter by the New-York based Center for Human Rights in Iran appeared to show police in riot gear clashing with protesters outside the gates to the Tehran University.

A second video showed smoke-shrouded streets, purportedly from tear gas, in the same area.

Al Jazeera could not authenticate the footage, but semi-state news agency Fars also reported confrontations between police and protesters at Tehran University.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people across Iran attended preplanned pro-government rallies on Saturday to mark the end of unrest following the country’s 2009 election.

State TV aired footage showing people in several cities waving flags and carrying banners bearing the image of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The large demonstrations, which were organised weeks ago, are held every year.

‘They no longer fear security forces’

Potkin Azarmehr, a blogger who focuses on the secular pro-democracy struggle in Iran, told Al Jazeera that several groups have been protesting for some time “and now their slogans have become more radical”. 

“They no longer seem to have that fear from security forces,” he said.

Mahan Abedin, an Iran analyst at Middle East Eye, said the protests reflect the gap between ordinary Iranians and the political elite.

The protests appeared to be “articulated by people who ostensibly have purely economic motives”, he said.

“I think in keeping with longstanding culture, inevitably these protests have become political.

“[President Hassan] Rouhani has the right attitude but his government riles people. This is a very elitist government, they are bureaucratic elites, technocratic elites – they are very distant from grievances of ordinary people.”

Reports said activists on social media have called for a fourth day of protests on Sunday.

Meanwhile, the US has been quick to respond to developments, warning Tehran against arresting peaceful protesters.

US President Donald Trump has posted a series of tweets on Iran, most recently writing: “Oppressive regimes cannot endure forever. The world is watching!”

Under Trump’s administration, Washington and Tehran have grown further apart, clashing on foreign policy issues such as the wars in Syria and Yemen and over the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

In response to Trump, Bahram Qassemi, spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry, called the US president’s warnings “cheap, worthless and invalid”, according to the semi-state news agency Fars.

“Iranian people feel no value for the opportunistic claims of the US officials and Mr. Trump, himself”, Qassemi was quoted as saying.

OkCupid explained again and again as responses to the reviews that it’s not requiring people to use their legal names. They can use nicknames, even initials, so long as they don’t have numbers and symbols. It told TechCrunch in a statement that the change’s purpose is to make the service more human and to give interested parties a name to call the other by from the get-go. The spokesperson also said that they’ve been getting positive responses despite the public outcry against the new feature:

“To give you some more background as to why we made the decision to remove usernames — this is a part of our mission to add more substance and depth to dating. OkCupid wants to make the experience more personal. Having a name adds more of a human element versus a ‘username’.

In response to the ‘workarounds’ we have stated that in order to qualify as a name it just has to be two letters minimum, no numbers or symbols. We also have a list of banned words that would not qualify. It’s important to clarify that this does not need to be your real/legal name, it can be any name that you want someone to call you.

We don’t have any plans to bring usernames back. We know some folks don’t like that usernames are going away but we get many (thousands!) of messages from folks who say they are offended by some of the usernames people make…or they just have a really really hard time coming up with one and can we help them create something that incorporates dinosaurs, tacos or pizza and ideally all three. Or they came up with a seriously awesome user name, and now they forgot it and can we please help them recover it. And we get thousands of requests to change their username because it doesn’t feel like the right thing anymore.

We are about safety and security of our users more than anything. That’s why we were the first dating app to introduce the Dating Pledge earlier this year. That’s why we have an incredible moderation team that personally reviews any issues and gets rid of folks that violate our rules.

Since we’ve made the change, we’ve heard from lots of people that it makes OkCupid a bit more human. And isn’t that the right move for a dating app?”

Based on users’ reviews, though, OkCupid has a lot of things to address aside from people’s unhappiness over its new name requirement. Some of those who recently paid for Premium membership to be able to get new usernames aren’t happy that they’re not getting any refund. OkCupid is now giving everyone free access to the name change process, after all, and has reportedly even locked out people until they complied. Other users complained about the fact that the service stopped showing profile visitors, and there seemed to be a lot of reports about glitches in the messaging system, as well.

Clearly, the 13-year-old dating service is struggling to find an identity that can both entice new users to sign up and keep the old ones happy. One thing’s for sure, though: just because it’s the age of Tinder doesn’t mean people want all dating apps to follow the same formula.

It’s not clear if or when the channel might come back.

The incident highlights the fine line Telegram has to walk. It doesn’t want to be seen as supporting an oppressive government, especially one that wants to spy on Telegram users, but it also has to maintain a consistent anti-violence policy. If it’s going to ban ISIS, it also has to ban activists that explicitly set out to hurt others, even if it ultimately helps governments silence resistance movements. Durov has been quick to object to complaints from Edward Snowden and other that he was facilitating Iran’s crackdown on dissent, noting that “thousands” of Iranian opposition channels are “thriving” on Telegram.

At the same time, this raises questions about just when violence becomes an issue. It’s one thing to encourage unprovoked Molotov cocktail attacks, but what if protesters discuss arming themselves knowing that the government will likely be the first to act? Even with fairly minimal policies like Telegram’s, that’s not always an easy call.

Greece’s government has filed a request to cancel the granting of asylum to one of eight Turkish soldiers who fled their country during last year’s failed coup attempt.

The move on Saturday came hours after a Greek administrative committee ruled in favour of the man’s appeal against his earlier application for asylum.

The committee’s ruling angered neighbouring Turkey, which has repeatedly called for the soldiers’ extradition, accusing them of having a hand in the putsch bid.

In a statement, Turkey’s ministry of foreign affairs called the decision politically motivated and warned that it would affect ties between the two countries.

“Greece failed to show the support and cooperation we expect from an ally in the fight against terrorism by preventing criminals who took part in killing hundreds of Turkish people and targeting the democratic order,” the statement said, according to a translation in Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah.

Later on Saturday, the Greek government said that it had filed an appeal against the decision by the administrative committee for asylum requests.

Athens said in a statement that its move was in line with “its standing position regarding the eight soldiers, as it has been repeatedly and publicly expressed”. 

Greece’s administrative court of appeal will now look into the case.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has previously said his country does not support coup plotters and that its justice system is independent.

The decision on Saturday was not taken by a judicial committee, but an administrative one. It is comprised by two administrative judges of the Greek justice and one representative of the UN’s refugee agency, according to Stavroula Tomara, one of the soldiers’ lawyers in Greece.

The eight soldiers fled Turkey in a military helicopter and landed in the Greek northeast town of Alexandroupolis during the failed coup on July 15, 2016.

The attempted coup against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government left more than 240 people dead.

In its ruling on Saturday, the Greek asylum committee ruled that there was no evidence to prove the officer had participated in the attempted putsch, media in Greece reported.

The tribunal is still considering the cases of the other seven fugitive soldiers.

Tomara, the lawyer, welcomed “the excellent, unbiased, impartial Greek judges for their courage and their [bravery] to take such a decision without being driven by any political interests”.

Speaking to Al Jazeera from Athens, Tomara said “the grounds for this decision [is] that the soldiers have not participated in any kind of coup”.

She said she expected the other seven soldiers to be granted asylum in their cases, as well, which are still pending.

Turkey has repeatedly called on Greece to extradite the officers, but the country’s Supreme Court rejected Ankara’s extradition request in January.

Up until now, the Greek government had said it could not intervene in the case and must respect the will of the judiciary. 

The issue has led to increased tension between Athens and Ankara.

Erdogan himself made a request for the officers’ extradition earlier this month during a meeting with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.

The Turkish government has accused Fethullah Gulen, a US-based Muslim cleric, of orchestrating the coup. Gulen denies the charges.

Each massive exit in the tech ecosystem usually follows the same cycle: an upstart becomes a huge business, it goes public or sells for a huge sum of money, many of the best people that built it take off and then they use their newfound wealth to start companies.

But in addition to tech, the venture community has its own pet project: coffee. With investors pouring money into companies like Blue Bottle Coffee, La Colombe and Philz, you’d probably think it’s still a pet project. Then, earlier this year, Nestlé acquired a majority stake in Blue Bottle at a valuation north of $700 million. And with that kind of an exit for a coffee startup, we’ll now test the ecosystem to see if we’ll see whether a diaspora of a class of coffee graduates will jump into the startup ecosystem themselves.

“If you view the startup ecosystem as a garden, this is a really good, healthy thing,” Collaborative Fund founder Craig Shapiro said. “Now there’s gonna be a bunch of new seeds put into the soil. There’s liquidity for all those employees and the founders who are each gonna be active in starting something new and trying something new. Maybe five years from now you and I could be talking about the Blue Bottle Mafia.”

There’s already been an array of startups that are looking to do things like make plant burgers like Impossible Foods, which raised $75 million earlier this year led by Temasek. There are also synthetic meat startups like Memphis Meats, which raised $17 million in financing from people like Bill Gates (whose name seems to come up a lot here) and Richard Branson, as well as DFJ. So the food ecosystem is not necessarily a new one. But despite a lot of venture funding flowing into this area, there doesn’t seem to have been a splashy exit in Silicon Valley’s pet project.

While it was a pet project, coffee may have made the most sense for a lot of funds like those putting money into coffee to test the waters. The operating margins aren’t bad, it’s a bit of a trendy pick and coffee may be a bit of a habit in addition to a consumer experience. Whether it’s selling and delivering roasted beans or having a shop on the way to work, coffee is a recurring experience, and there’s probably some internal metric somewhere of weekly active re-roasters or something like that. Silicon Valley loves that kind of recurring revenue model, should it actually take off.

Here’s a look at Starbucks’ operating margins for the past fiscal year, for example:

So, not really bad. But if you look at the company’s stock price, it’s had a bit of a middling year. Despite that, Starbucks still has a market cap of more than $80 billion:

I’ve made the not-so-much-of-a-joke suggestion that Amazon should buy a coffee startup. The company spent more than $13.7 billion acquiring Whole Foods, and there’s an opportunity for a brand match with Amazon and a true trendy coffee brand like Philz. And the market opportunity, as we’ve seen with the case of Starbucks, is actually quite big. Were a startup (or Amazon) to open a coffee shop across from even a fraction of each Starbucks store and try to sell a better coffee experience than that get-in-get-out-with-your-latte consumer behavior, and then sell at a slight premium, that already offers a pretty significant opportunity. And if you’ve ever been to a Blue Bottle, you’ll see that attempt at whatever an Apple Store experience looks like in coffee form is seemingly the goal.

Consumer packaged goods companies, or CPG for short, are already looking for different avenues to pick up brands that have some strong consumer affinity. Coca-Cola, for example, bought the Topo Chico — a superb sparkling water startup that’s very popular in Texas — earlier this year (thanks for spoiling that, NYT). These kinds of product-focused companies with strong consumer brands are clearly wildly valuable to larger food and beverage companies, and all this M&A activity will surely catch the eye of investors.

Shapiro argues there will be a lot of interest in clean-ingredient movements beyond just the noise happening around plant-based foods. Bigger food and beverage companies have challenges changing their procurement strategies, Shapiro said, so it could indeed make sense to pick up a startup or smaller company that is already a self-contained operating unit. He pointed to RXBar, which Kellogg acquired for $600 million earlier this year.

“I think between new funds focused on this as well as existing funds that are now paying attention to it, I think we’re gonna see significant investment and orders of magnitude more than what most people anticipate,” he said.

A splashy exit like this will probably catch the attention of investors and potential entrepreneurs with experience in the CPG space. CircleUp, for example, raised a $125 million fund to invest in consumer products earlier this year. What we’ll have to see is if an exit like Blue Bottle actually provided the liquidity investors and founders or early employees needed to get started on their own companies — but at the very least, it looks like the spark may soon evolve into a flame.

Featured Image: Richard Levine/Corbis/Getty Images

For the robbers, Lerner was a great target: he’s a known bitcoin authority in Ukraine and is an executive at cryptocurrency exchange Exmo. He was thankfully released (shocked but alive) a couple of days later, but it’s unclear who made the transfer for him and whether he did it himself. His company has assured users, though, that their coins are “absolutely safe” and that the kidnappers wouldn’t have gotten access to their wallets and personal data since Lerner himself has no access to them.

We’re going to assume the criminals have already sold or moved their stash whatever the source was, since they’d have to deal with the virtual currency’s fluctuating prices otherwise. Ukraine’s National Police already launched a criminal case to investigate Lerner’s abduction — it’s the first bitcoin-related one in the country, but it’ll probably be just one of the many we’ll hear about going forward.

Apple today announced it is making its reduced $29 battery replacements available immediately for iPhone 6 and all newer models.

Apple previously said it would offer the cheaper battery replacements in late January, but it has removed that timeframe from its letter to customers, and has confirmed immediate availability in a statement to TechCrunch.

We expected to need more time to be ready, but we are happy to offer our customers the lower pricing right away. Initial supplies of some replacement batteries may be limited.

Apple normally charges $79 for out-of-warranty iPhone battery replacements, but it reduced the price by $50 following a wave of controversy over its process of dynamically managing the peak performance of some older iPhone models with degraded batteries to prevent unexpected shutdowns.

Given a lack of nuance in some mainstream coverage, many headlines have fueled speculation that Apple artificially slows down older iPhones to drive customers to upgrade to newer models, but the actual issue was Apple’s lack of transparency about the power management changes it made starting in iOS 10.2.1.

When it released iOS 10.2.1 in February, Apple only vaguely said it made “improvements” to reduce occurrences of unexpected shutdowns. It only chose to explain that the changes it made may result in temporary slowdowns on some older iPhone models with degraded batteries after controversy recently reignited.

The issue came into the spotlight in early December after a Reddit user claimed that his iPhone’s performance significantly increased after replacing the device’s battery. Soon after, analysis of iPhone 6s benchmarks visualized an apparent link between lower performance and degraded battery health.

Apple responded by noting the power management process is a “feature” rolled out to iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, and iPhone SE, but since it didn’t fully communicate this change, some iPhone users may not have realized all they needed was a new battery.

Apple said it will release an iOS update in early 2018 with new features that give users more visibility into the health of their iPhone’s battery, so they can see for themselves if its condition is affecting performance. It’s unclear if Apple will ever let customers opt out of the power management process.

Apple said the cheaper iPhone battery replacements will be available worldwide through December 2018. The $29 fee applies to the United States, with prices varying in other countries based on exchange rates.

To initiate the battery replacement process, we recommend contacting Apple Support by phone, online chat, email, or Twitter, or scheduling a Genius Bar appointment at an Apple Store with the Apple Support app. You can also inquire about a battery replacement with select Apple Authorized Service Providers.

Those $29 battery out-of-warranty replacements Apple promised are now available for impacted users with an iPhone 6 or later. The company was initially aiming for a late-January timeframe in the States when it first offered up the discount, following blowback against its admission that it had slowed down older model phones to maximize performance.

“We expected to need more time to be ready,” the company said in a statement offered up to TechCrunch this weekend, “but we are happy to offer our customers the lower pricing right away. Initial supplies of some replacement batteries may be limited.”

In other words, get ‘em while the getting’s good. The steep $50 discount on battery replacement marked a rare public apology for the company, and many users are likely to jump on the opportunity to breathe a little extra life into their phone. The competition has certainly made the most out of the news. Chief competitors including Samsung, HTC, LG and Motorola have all used the opportunity to note that they haven’t taken similar approaches with their handsets.

Yesterday, meanwhile, iFixit used the apology as an excuse to discount its own iPhone battery replacement kit to $29, even as the news was already driving a spike in purchases. The company cited the potential wait time for battery replacements as a reason to jump on its offer.

The delay as the company ramped up battery availability, coupled with the timing of scheduling a Genius Bar appointment have been a source of subsequent frustration for users already put off by a lack of transparency around the phone slowing policy. If you put in for a replacement prior today, the $50 discount would not apply to your phone.

For now, however, the offer’s good, as least as long as supplies last. Apple will be offering more details on the replacement program on its site.

Apple

You could call 2017 Apple’s year of redemption … or at least the start of its redemption. Whereas 2016 was defined by iterative devices and a sense that Apple had lost its way (see the dongle-tastic MacBook Pro), this year saw Apple rethink multiple products with a mind to 2018 and beyond.

To start, it apologized for botching the Mac Pro and neglecting the pro market as a whole. Soon after, it unveiled the iMac Pro as a near-term fix, but the biggest news was the promise of a redesigned Mac Pro in 2018 that addresses gripes about expandability and performance. Whereas 2017 began with pros wondering if Apple was abandoning them, 2018 will start with a renewed (if cautious) optimism. The company also spent much of 2017 laying the groundwork for more futuristic technologies, including virtual reality and external graphics cards. Between this and refreshing most of its computer lineup, Apple made it clear that the Mac will enjoy a renaissance in 2018 — and catch up with tech that Windows has had for a while.

And then there’s the iPhone. After years of conservative updates, Apple finally shook things up with the iPhone X. Its nearly all-screen design was a welcome upgrade, and its depth-based face detection was a clever (if imperfect) replacement for fingerprint readers. It’s safe to say that Apple will spread the iPhone X’s technology across other parts of its lineup in 2018.

On top of this, 2017 was the year the Apple Watch came into its own. A rocky launch notwithstanding, the Series 3 addressed the wish lists of early adopters with cellular data, improved performance and longer battery life. The new model helped Apple regain its lead in the wearable world and left little doubt that smartwatches would continue to be hot commodities in 2018.

That’s not to say there weren’t missteps. Buggy software marred some key products, from an Apple Watch connection glitch to iOS 11 reliability issues to a scary Mac root access flaw. Moreover, 2017 was the year of premature hardware announcements. The HomePod, iMac Pro and new Mac Pro were all unveiled several months before they were due to ship, which is unusual for a company that frequently delivers newly announced hardware within weeks. Even the iPhone X missed the usual iPhone release window in September. Simply put, Apple developed a habit of announcing products well before they were ready, but hopefully in 2018 the company will focus on fulfilling promises rather than making them.

Google

If Google had only been dipping its toes into the hardware waters before, it dove in headfirst with its 2017 lineup. In many cases, the company’s AI know-how was a central feature — and that’s likely to continue in 2018. The Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL were two of the best phones of the year, thanks in part to their excellent AI-assisted cameras, and they’re only likely to improve through features like the Pixel Visual Core. Google’s smart speaker line clearly blossomed too. The Home Mini’s lower price made Google Assistant more accessible in the living room, while the Home Max gave audio enthusiasts an alternative to the Sonos One and (eventually) Apple’s HomePod. The company prepared for VR’s wireless future with support for standalone Daydream headsets, and it even gave hope to Chrome OS fans by replacing the Chromebook Pixel with the more flexible Pixelbook.

Even so, to say that Google flubbed a few things would be an understatement. The Pixel 2 line launched with its share of glitches, and the 2 XL took an extraordinary amount of flak for its display. Between blue tinting, muted colors, burn-in and unresponsive edges, there were so many complaints that Google extended warranties to quell upset customers. Software fixes addressed some of these problems, but it’s evident that quality control will need to be a priority for 2018.

And then there are the Pixel Buds. While they do offer solid sound quality, just about everything else about them screams version 1.0. Fiddly controls, an awkward charging case and the questionable utility of the signature translation feature (which could easily be handled on your phone) make them a tough sell. There’s a good chance Google will address at least some of these flaws later in 2018, but for now they don’t live up to their promise.

Amazon

This was the year Amazon went all out in its bids to conquer the smart speaker arena and make Alexa the voice assistant of choice in 2018. It released no fewer than five Echo models in 2017, all but one of which could do considerably more than play audio. Want a smart home hub? Echo Plus. Video viewer? Echo Show. You can even get an alarm clock (the Echo Spot) or a fashion adviser (the Echo Look). And that’s not including Alexa-equipped devices like the Cloud Cam, Fire HD 10 tablet and new Fire TV. While we had our misgivings (the second-gen Echo’s sound quality was initially lousy, for one) Amazon made Alexa far more accessible and capable. Expect that trend to continue in 2018: There has already been a leak hinting at a hybrid Echo/Fire TV media hub.

However, Amazon’s real coup was getting other device makers to hop on the Alexa bandwagon. It wasn’t just the Sonos One, although that was definitely the most prominent example. Jeff Bezos and company managed to slip Alexa into hardware as diverse as the HTC U11 smartphone, the Ecobee4 thermostat and even Mercedes-Benz cars. While the AI helper doesn’t currently have the international reach of Apple, Google or Microsoft, Amazon’s rapid international expansion of Alexa support at the end of 2017 hinted that Alexa could become truly ubiquitous in the year to come.

Unfortunately for Amazon, things started to unravel toward the end of the year. Google pulled support for YouTube on both the Echo Show and Fire TV in a dispute over Amazon’s hardware sales policies and unofficial apps, hobbling two of Amazon’s most important products. Amazon only just started making amends by carrying the Chromecast. Plus, there were a few questionable gadgets. Does anyone really want an upscale Kindle reader or Alexa game button? Amazon may have spread itself too thin, and there are easily a few products that could fizzle out in 2018.

Facebook

There was one common theme for Facebook’s hardware in 2017: VR, VR and more VR. Just under its own brand, it introduced 360-degree pro cameras, launched social VR spaces and promoted virtual reality technology at every given opportunity. There were other hardware initiatives, such as the Building 8 lab’s brain-computer interface and internet drones, but there’s no indication that you’ll get more than peeks at these projects in 2018.

Oculus was certainly busy as well. It spent 2017 priming itself for a future in which VR is truly wireless, whether it’s the low-cost Oculus Go or the advanced Project Santa Cruz prototype. It revamped its VR interface to be easier to use. While there’s no guarantee the Go or Santa Cruz will reach your head in 2018, Oculus will go into the year with the clear goal of leaving clunky, complicated headsets firmly in the past.

Microsoft

This was a renewal year for Microsoft’s hardware. After laying low in 2016, the company’s device teams sprung into action, not only refreshing products that had been left untouched for more than a year but also addressing long-standing requests from fans who wanted a more complete selection. Its PC line finally got a conventional portable in the form of the Surface Laptop, while the Surface Book 2 added a 15-inch model packing the sort of horsepower that pros and gamers crave. There’s no certainty that Microsoft will continue to aggressively update its Surface line, but its device catalog is much stronger going into 2018.

The Xbox One X will shape Microsoft’s new year too. Even more so than in 2017, you can expect the company to push its high-end Xbox as a vehicle for all things 4K, whether it’s the latest games or streaming services. It could even be a Trojan horse for VR, given that there are plans to bring mixed reality headsets to the Xbox. The challenge is that Microsoft is somewhat late to the party. Sony offered gamers a taste of 4K with the PS4 Pro and has already been selling PlayStation VR for over a year, so Microsoft will have to spend 2018 proving that its hardware was worth the wait.

Tensions are high in Iran as hundreds of people protest in multiple cities against the government’s economic policies.

About 300 people protested in Kermanshah, a city in western Iran, on Friday, according to the semi-state news agency Fars. Police there used water cannon and tear gas to disperse demonstrators.

Protests also broke out in the capital Tehran, according to social media.

The demonstrations are said to be the biggest display of public dissent since pro-reform rallies swept the country in 2009.

US President Donald Trump has warned Iran’s government to respect the people’s right to protest. 

Relations between Washington and Tehran have been particularly tense since Trump decertified the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)– agreed to by the US, China, Russia, Germany, France, and the UK – imposes restrictions on Iran’s stockpiles of uranium and the capacity to enrich it in exchange for sanctions relief.

Al Jazeera spoke to Mohammad Marandi, professor at Tehran University, about the reasons behind the recent anti-government rallies.

Al Jazeera: Why have people been protesting over the past few days?

Mohammad Marandi: There are economic difficulties in the country.

After the JCPOA, many of the Iranian people had expectations that the economic situation would improve, but as we saw both [former President Barack] Obama and Trump repeatedly violated the JCPOA by passing new laws such as the Iran sanctions act and the visa restriction laws.

The treasury and other arms of the government, both under Obama and Trump, have basically weakened the JCPOA extensively, which has kept a lot of the sanctions regime intact.

Al Jazeera: There have been small protests over economic conditions in Iran. But what’s special about these ones is that they have spread to numerous cities and have been picked up on social media. Is some sort of movement emerging?

Marandi: It’s difficult to say, because on the one hand, the economic situation is something that exists across the board.

Iranians, I think, while they are upset with mismanagement, they also recognise that the administration is being prevented from doing a lot of what it’s trying to do because of the United States and its allies, and the sanctions that I mentioned.

And of course social media makes things easier, so people have information.

But also, there is a fact that has to be kept in mind that while some people have been protesting economic problems.

We do see a very distinct effort on behalf of foreign governments.

For example, BBC Persian which belongs to the British government, VOA which is owned by the US government and media outlets that are directly or indirectly funded by the West – they are showing an effort to expand the protests.

They are trying to intensify them in order to politicise them.

While Iranians are upset with mismanagement, they also recognise that the administration is being prevented from doing a lot of what it’s trying to do because of the US and its allies.

Mohammad Marandi, University of Tehran professor

Al Jazeera: The government recognises that these protests are about more than the economics of the country. We’re hearing anti-government slogans – “Death to Rouhani”, “Forget Palestine”, “No to Gaza”, “No to Lebanon” – deriding Iran’s foreign policies. How concerned is the government about this?

Marandi: Well the protesters … are not large in number. You have to keep in mind that these protesters are not all chanting the same slogans.

Some of them have been chanting anti-government slogans or slogans against Iranian foreign policy.

But when you look at the clips, you see that in some cases there is unity in the slogans and in other cases, when there are radical voices, then you see a lot of the crowd not repeating the slogans. So it’s not so simple.

But there is a concerted effort, I think, on behalf of the Western media outlets.

In Iran, whenever there is any sign of discontent you will always have the think tanks and Western media saying that the regime is about to implode and the regime is unpopular. We have been hearing that for 39 years now, and I don’t expect anything like to happen in the future.

Al Jazeera: It is quite interesting to see how quickly the Trump administration jumped on these protests, warning the government not to react with a heavy hand…

Marandi: Yes, it is ironic, especially with Trump being such a divisive figure inside the United States with the protests and counter-protests.

In Charlottesville, we had a person killed. On the other hand, we see that the US is supporting Saudi Arabia in the destruction of Yemen in mass genocide through starvation.

We see the United States, both under Obama and Trump, supporting extremist groups in Syria, so it’s not really for the US to talk about human rights when it comes to Iran. 

This interview has been edited for clarity and length. 

Thursday night Wichita police killed Andrew Finch after responding to a call claiming a man at his address had shot someone and was holding others hostage. That call was a hoax, commonly referred to as “swatting,” and in this case, it’s apparently linked to a Call of Duty match, where one player passed a fake address to another before someone called the police to it. Now NBC News reports that police in Los Angeles have arrested 25-year-old Tyler Barriss, who is believed to have made the call inciting the incident.

Barriss may be the “SWAutistic” who tweeted about making the call and later participated in a phone interview with the DramaAlert show on YouTube. An LAPD spokesperson confirmed to Engadget that Barriss is in custody, no bail has been set, and that they are working with Wichita police on the case. The LA Times reported in 2015 that he had been arrested for calling in a bomb threat to a TV studio, and in the YouTube video, SWAutistic claims to be responsible for bomb threats that interrupted an MLG Call of Duty event in Dallas earlier this month.

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Once you’ve created your comic masterpiece, you can then share it to an online community of Marvel fans. Of course, with this great power comes some rather odious terms of use, as noted by io9. The comics you make and share will be owned by Marvel and Tap Tap, and you can’t include content or topics that, let’s face it, many wannabe comic makers are going to want to include. The terms of use state that you can’t create things with content that might frighten or upset young children (or their parents), double entendres, sensationalism (killer bees, gossip, aliens — have they ever read a comic?), obscenity or “noises related to body functions” (farts are funny, ok?), politics, or “Other controversial topics (social issues, etc.).”

Chances are good that most of us are going to want to create a comic that breaks all those rules in just a few panels, of course. Still, it’s pretty great that Marvel is allowing us to play with these characters on the internet. If you really need to make Hulk fart jokes, you can just avoid uploading it to the community site.

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Facing lawsuits and consumer outrage after it said it slowed older iPhones with flagging batteries, Apple Inc is dropping prices for battery replacements and will change its software to show users whether their phone battery is good.

In a posting on its website on Thursday, Apple apologised over its handling of the battery issue and said it would make a number of changes for customers “to recognise their loyalty and to regain the trust of anyone who may have doubted Apple’s intentions.”

Apple made the move to address concerns about the quality and durability of its products at a time when it is charging $999 for its newest flagship model, the iPhone X.

The company said it would cut the price of an out-of-warranty battery replacement from $79 to $29 for an iPhone 6 or later, starting next month.

The company also will update its iOS operating system to let users see whether their battery is in poor health and is affecting the phone’s performance.

We know that some of you feel Apple has let you down, we apologise

Apple 

On December 20, Apple acknowledged that iPhone software has the effect of slowing down some phones with battery problems.

Apple said the problem was that aging lithium batteries delivered power unevenly, which could cause iPhones to shut down unexpectedly to protect the delicate circuits inside.

That disclosure played on a common belief among consumers that Apple purposely slows down older phones to encourage customers to buy newer iPhone models.

While no credible evidence has ever emerged that Apple engaged in such conduct, the battery disclosure struck a nerve on social media and elsewhere.

Apple on Thursday denied that it has ever done anything to intentionally shorten the life of a product.

At least eight lawsuits have been filed in California, New York and Illinois alleging that the company defrauded users by slowing devices down without warning them.

The company also faces a legal complaint in France, where so-called planned obsolesce is against the law.

SOURCE: Reuters news agency

Here’s what seems to have gone down. Two individuals were playing Call of Duty and got into an argument online over a game with a $1.50 wager. One of them, a person with the Twitter handle @SWauTistic, threatened to swat user @7aLeNT. The latter then provided an address that wasn’t actually their own in response to the threat. Shortly thereafter, @SWauTistic allegedly called in the false report, which led to a police response at the provided address. Andrew Finch, who lived at the address, reportedly went to the front door in response to the commotion and was shot. “As he came to the front door, one of our officers discharged his weapon,” said Livingston. The police haven’t said whether Finch had a weapon at the time, but his family has said there were no guns in the house. The officer who fired the shot is a seven-year department veteran who will be put on paid administrative leave pending an investigation.

Once the story began attracting media coverage, @SWauTistic tweeted that the house he swatted was on the news, which was then followed by a tweet saying he didn’t get anyone killed because he wasn’t the person who shot Finch.

KrebsOnSecurity reports that the individual then changed his Twitter handle to @GoredTutor36, but not before KrebsOnSecurity got its hands on weeks’ worth of the original account’s tweets. The person behind the account has claimed credit for a number of swatting hoaxes and other threats including one that led to the evacuation of the Dallas Convention Center earlier this month, a bomb threat at a Florida high school in November and the threat that caused the FCC to pause its net neutrality vote a couple of weeks ago.

In direct message conversations with KrebsOnSecurity, the person running @GoredTutor36 said that they had remorse over Finch’s death but that they would not be turning themselves in. “People will eventually (most likely those who know me) tell me to turn myself in or something. I can’t do that; though I know its [sic] morally right. I’m too scared admittedly,” they wrote. They also said, “Bomb threats are more fun and cooler than swats in my opinion and I should have just stuck to that. But I began making $ doing some swat requests.” The person also noted that the thrill of such hoaxes “comes from having to hide from police via net connections.”

Finch was a father of two children — a two-year-old and a seven-year-old — and his family said he didn’t play video games.

Images: @mattcarries via KrebsOnSecurity

Like 2017, 2018 promises to be a major year for Apple, with many new products on the horizon. We’ll get Apple’s first smart speaker — the HomePod — this year, along with a second-generation version of the iPhone X accompanied by a larger-screened version for those who want to go even bigger.

A new iPad Pro with Face ID is said to be in the works, and this is also the year when Apple’s AirPower wireless charging mat will debut. Beyond that, we can expect Mac refreshes, new software, a new Apple Watch, and maybe that new modular Mac Pro.

Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.

Below, we’ve rounded up all of the products we’re expecting to see from Apple in 2018 based on both current rumors that we’ve heard so far and past release information.

HomePod – Early 2018

HomePod is Apple’s first Wi-Fi connected smart speaker, designed to compete with existing smart speakers like the Amazon Echo and the Google Home. It was originally meant to debut in December, but Apple delayed its launch to an unspecified date in “early 2018.”

With HomePod, Apple focused on sound quality, with a 7 tweeter array, each with its own driver, and a 4-inch upward-facing woofer for crisp, distortion free sound. An A8 chip powers spatial awareness features, allowing the HomePod to analyze a room and then adjust the sound accordingly.

Siri is built into HomePod, and there’s integration with Apple Music for Apple Music subscribers. Using a six-microphone array, HomePod can detect Siri commands from anywhere in a room, so Siri can be used to play music, answer queries, and more.

We don’t know exactly when HomePod will be released, but it should come out in the first few months of 2018. Apple plans to charge $349 for the speaker.

Read more about HomePod in our HomePod roundup.

Three New iPhones – September 2018

Apple introduced three iPhones in 2017 — the iPhone X, the iPhone 8, and the iPhone 8 Plus — and current rumors suggest we’ll also see three new models in 2018.

The first iPhone we’re expecting will be a followup to the iPhone X with the same 5.8-inch OLED display. Rumors suggest it will be accompanied by a second OLED iPhone, this one measuring in at 6.5 inches, which means it can be thought of as an “iPhone X Plus.”

Alongside these two OLED iPhones, Apple is also said to be planning to introduce a 6.1-inch iPhone with an LCD display, positioned as a more affordable device targeting the low-end and midrange markets with a starting price of $649 to $749 in the United States.

Apple’s planned 2018 iPhone lineup, via Ming-Chi Kuo

According to KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, all three of these iPhones will feature edge-to-edge displays, Face ID, and TrueDepth camera systems, which means the end of both the Home button and the Touch ID fingerprint sensor in new iPhone models for the time being.


Kuo believes the 5.8-inch model will have a display with 458 pixels per inch, indicating the same 1125 x 2436 resolution as the iPhone X, while the larger 6.5-inch OLED model will offer 480 to 500 pixels per inch. The LCD model, which, as mentioned, will be positioned as a lower cost device, will have a lower-resolution LCD display with 320 to 330 pixels per inch.

Kuo’s predictions are often accurate, and he was able to share many details on the iPhone X ahead of its launch, so the three-iPhone rumor is credible.

It’s not clear what other features we may see in the 2018 iPhones aside from Face ID and edge-to-edge displays across the board, but a faster processor is a guarantee, and Apple may also adopt improved battery technology to offer longer battery life. New LTE modems are also in the works, which will allow for faster LTE connections.

All of the new iPhones are likely to use the same general design as the iPhone X, with glass bodies to support wireless charging, though one unsubstantiated rumor has suggested the lower-end device might instead include a metal frame.

With the iPhone X, Apple changed its naming scheme for the iPhone, so it’s anyone’s guess what. the 2018 devices will be called. Apple could name the next-generation iPhone X and its larger sibling the iPhone XI and the XI Plus, but it’s not clear if that’s what the company plans to do.

Read more about what’s coming in the 2018 iPhones in our iPhone X roundup.

iPad Pro – September 2018?

Face ID has been well-received in the iPhone X, and rumors suggest Apple is planning to deploy it to additional devices, including the iPad Pro.

A high-end 2018 iPad Pro could adopt many of the design elements of the iPhone X, with slimmer bezels, no Home button, and Face ID powered through the same TrueDepth camera system introduced in the iPhone X, according to Bloomberg.

iPad Pro render via Benjamin Geskin

A faster processor and custom Apple-built GPU are also rumored for the new tablet, but it’s not expected to gain an OLED display, with Apple continuing to use an LCD because of technical and financial constraints.

We haven’t heard rumors on the size of this updated tablet, but Apple is likely to stick with the 10.5-inch form factor. Whether we’ll also see a 12.9-inch iPad Pro with slimmer bezels and no Home button remains to be seen, but a separate rumor has said all 2018 iPad Pro models will feature Face ID and a TrueDepth camera.

Apple may also have a new version of the Apple Pencil in the works, but what improvements might be included aren’t known at this time.

Rumors suggest Apple may introduce the iPad Pro “a little more than a year” after the prior iPad Pro update, which was in June, so we may see the 2018 iPad sometime around September.

Read more about the next-generation iPad Pro in our iPad Pro roundup.

Low-cost iPad – Early 2018?

In 2017, Apple introduced a new 5th-generation 9.7-inch iPad with the lowest price we’ve seen yet – $329 for the 32GB model. Though not as thin as the iPad Pro, and missing features like Apple Pencil support and ProMotion display technology, the iPad has an A9 processor and is a capable, powerful device.

Rumors suggest Apple could introduce an even lower-cost iPad in 2018, with a price tag that starts at $259. That would allow Apple to better compete in the lower cost tablet market. This rumor comes from DigiTimes, though, a source that’s not always entirely reliable, so it’s not yet clear if Apple does indeed have an even more affordable iPad in the works.

If there is a new iPad coming, it could be introduced in early 2018, a year after the March 2018 debut of the fifth-generation iPad.

Read more about what’s next for the iPad in our iPad roundup.

Apple Watch Series 4 – September 2018

Apple has been updating the Apple Watch on an annual basis, so we’re expecting to see a fourth-generation model in 2018. These updates have come in September alongside the iPhone for the last two years, and Apple will likely follow the same schedule for 2018.

The Apple Watch has not seen a redesign since it was first introduced in 2015, so 2018 could be the year that Apple introduces a new look for the wrist-worn device. We haven’t heard rumors about a redesigned fourth-generation model, but there was some talk about a redesign for the Apple Watch Series 3.

That didn’t happen, but there’s a possibility that info was referring to an Apple Watch coming at a later date because it did come from a reliable source – Daring Fireball‘s John Gruber.

Rumors have suggested Apple will perhaps use micro-LED displays for the 2018 Apple Watch, which would allow for a thinner, lighter display with improved color gamut and brightness.

New sensors could also be in store, as Apple has been testing EKG functionality for the Apple Watch. The feature would require users to place two fingers on either side of the Apple Watch to record the electrical activity of the heart to better detect irregularities. It’s not known if this functionality will be ready to debut in 2018.

Other sensors could be in the works, as could accessories that add new health-related capabilities to the device. Apple has been testing non-invasive blood glucose monitoring techniques, but it’s not likely this is something ready to debut in a product, and while Apple has patented bands that have built-in sensors, it’s also not clear if this is something that will come to fruition. Both are possibilities, though.

Read more about the next Apple Watch in our Apple Watch roundup.

AirPower Charging Mat

The iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and X introduce support for Qi-based inductive charging for the first time, allowing them to work with Qi-certified chargers. There’s no Apple designed charger on the market yet, but as Apple announced in September, an accessory is in the works.

Called the AirPower, Apple’s wireless charging device is designed to charge the Apple Watch, the AirPods, and the iPhone X, iPhone 8, or iPhone 8 Plus all at the same time. It will work with the three newest iPhones, the Apple Watch Series 3, and the AirPods with a new inductive charging case that’s in the works.

Apple has not announced pricing or a launch date beyond the nebulous “2018” for the AirPower, but rumors suggest it could cost somewhere around $199 in the United States.

Next-Generation AirPods – Mid to Late 2018

Apple in September introduced a second-generation AirPods case that’s coming out in 2018 alongside the AirPower charging mat, which is designed to allow the AirPods to charge wirelessly.

In addition to this inductive charging case, Apple is also said to be planning to debut an upgraded version of the AirPods themselves in the second half of 2018. There’s no real word on what improvements might be made to the AirPods in 2018, but a “smaller quartz” component is one prediction from KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the source of the rumor.

Better Bluetooth connectivity, an upgraded W1 chip, and new color options are all possible features Apple could introduce in updated 2018 AirPods, but nothing is confirmed at this point.

iMac and iMac Pro – Mid-to-Late 2018?

Apple refreshes the iMac on a yearly basis, so we’re likely to see updated 21.5 and 27-inch machines with 8th-generation Coffee Lake chips from Intel. The bump to Coffee Lake should introduce some nice speed improvements, as Intel says they’re up to 32 percent faster than previous-generation chips.

The iMac hasn’t seen a design refresh since 2012, but it’s not yet clear if other changes are in store beyond updated internals.

As for the iMac Pro, it’s a new product that was just introduced in December of 2017, so we don’t yet know its refresh schedule. In the past, Apple has not updated its pro machines on a yearly basis, so it’s not yet clear if it will be refreshed with updated components in 2018.

Read more about iMac and iMac Pro in our iMac and iMac Pro roundups.

MacBook Pro – June?

The MacBook Pro is typically refreshed on an annual basis, and 2018 should be no different. We’re expecting a minor spec bump with 8th-generation Kaby Lake Refresh chips, and perhaps some other improvements that include faster RAM and SSDs.

In 2017, KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said Apple was working on a higher-end MacBook Pro machine for professional users with 32GB RAM, set for a 2017 launch, but no such machine materialized. Whether there’s actually such a product in the works remains to be seen.

Given that the MacBook Pro’s design was just updated in 2016, we’re not expecting any design changes in 2018. The last refresh was in June of 2017, so a 2018 refresh could also happen in June following the Worldwide Developers Conference.

Read more about the MacBook Pro in our MacBook Pro roundup.

MacBook – June?

The MacBook is another machine that Apple normally updates on an annual basis, and this year’s refresh is likely to introduce 8th-generation Kaby Lake Refresh chips for speed and efficiency improvements.

Other internal components could also be updated, but no external design changes are expected as it’s only been two years since the MacBook came out.

Read more about the MacBook in our MacBook roundup.

New Software – June Preview, September Release

Apple in 2018 is expected to introduce new versions of the software that runs on iOS devices, Macs, the Apple Watch, and the Apple TV. In 2018, we expect to see iOS 12, macOS 10.14, watchOS 5, and tvOS 12.

As it does every year, Apple is likely to introduce these new software updates at the Worldwide Developers Conference, typically held in June. Following WWDC, beta versions will be provided to developers and eventually public beta testers for testing purposes ahead of an eventual September release alongside new iPhones and other new products.

We haven’t heard a lot about what we can expect to see in iOS 12, macOS 10.14, watchOS 5, and tvOS 12, but Bloomberg has suggested Apple is working on a universal app solution that would allow developers to create apps that work across iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Currently, developers must develop apps for iOS and macOS separately.

A unified app system would mean developers could create a single app able to run on iPads, iPhones, Macs, the Apple Watch, and the Apple TV with less effort, as currently, iOS apps can already be extended to the Apple Watch and the Apple TV.

Apple is tentatively planning to introduce this universal app change in iOS 12 and macOS 10.14.

No other hints on what we can expect in next year’s software updates have surfaced as of yet, but we’re likely to learn more as the next Worldwide Developers Conference approaches.

Products We Might See

Apple TV Shows

Apple is delving into original television programming in a big way, and it’s possible the first of the company’s new TV shows could launch in 2018.

So far, Apple has purchased the rights to three new TV series: an “Amazing Stories” reboot with Steven Spielberg based on the original sci-fi show that ran from 1985 to 1987, an untitled “morning show drama” starring Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston, and an untitled space drama developed by Ronald D. Moore, best known for creating the 2004 reboot of Battlestar Galactica.

Amazing Stories from 1985

The morning show drama is described as an “inside look at the lives of the people who help America wake up in the morning,” while the space drama “explores what would have happened if the global space race had never ended.”

Apple just recently purchased all three of these shows and none of them are in production, so it’s not entirely clear when exactly each one will debut.

Read more about Apple’s original content plans in our Apple TV roundup.

Mac mini

The Mac mini, which hasn’t been updated since 2014, is in dire need of a refresh. We’ve heard no real word about work on a new Mac mini machine, but in October of 2017, Apple CEO Tim Cook said Apple plans for Mac mini to be “an important part” of the Mac product lineup going forward.

We don’t know if 2018 is the year when the Mac mini will finally be overhauled and updated, but it’s a possibility. If Apple does plan on introducing a Mac mini update at some point, it could come in June or September, and it could include 8th-generation Kaby Lake Refresh processors from Intel and Thunderbolt 3 support.

Read more about the Mac mini in our Mac mini roundup.

Mac Pro and Display

Apple in April announced plans to introduce a next-generation high-end high-throughput modular Mac Pro that will facilitate regular upgrades to meet the needs of the company’s pro user base. Apple plans to ship the machine alongside an upcoming Apple-branded pro display.

Work on the new Mac Pro didn’t commence until spring of 2017, and all Apple said about a release date is that it wouldn’t be ready in 2017. Apple’s made no mention of 2018, but it’s possible the Mac Pro will come late in the year. We may, in fact, hear more about it at the Worldwide Developers Conference, which will likely take place in June.

Modular Mac Pro concept image from CURVED/labs.

Apple has a dedicated team working on the Mac Pro, designed specifically for “demanding pro customers.” Apple is committed to making the Mac Pro the highest-end desktop system able to accommodate VR and high-end cinema production.

Read more about the Mac Pro in our Mac Pro roundup.

New iPhone SE

People who prefer smaller 4-inch iPhones are undoubtedly hoping for a new version of the iPhone SE, the updated 4-inch device Apple introduced in the spring of 2016. We really haven’t heard any concrete, reliable rumors suggesting another version of the iPhone SE is in the works, but there have been some less credible hints.

Supply chain sources told Taiwan’s Economic Daily News that a second-generation iPhone SE is in the works for the first half of 2018, with the device to be assembled by Taiwanese manufacturer Wistron at its factory in Bangalore, India.

An entirely questionable and unverified rumor from Indian site Tekz24 has said the next iPhone SE will include an A10 chip, 2GB RAM, a 12-megapixel rear camera, a 5-megapixel front-facing camera, and thinner side bezels, but we’re not sure that’s accurate information.

Read more about what’s next for the iPhone SE in our iPhone SE roundup.

What’s Not Likely in 2018

New Apple TV

The Apple TV 4K was released in September of 2017, and so far, Apple hasn’t been doing yearly Apple TV updates. Prior to the 2017 release of the Apple TV 4K, there was an updated model released in 2015, but no 2016 refresh.

With an A10X processor in the Apple TV 4K, it’s fast enough to hold up for a few years, so we’re not expecting to see a new Apple TV in 2018.

Read more about the Apple TV in our Apple TV roundup.

MacBook Air

Apple refreshed the MacBook Air in 2017 with slightly faster Broadwell processors, but aside from that, the device, which is Apple’s most affordable laptop, has not been updated since 2015.

Apple is likely phasing the MacBook Air out in favor of the MacBook and the 13-inch MacBook Pro, both of which make the “Air” moniker antiquated with their slimmer bodies. The MacBook and the 13-inch MacBook Pro are still not machines Apple is able to sell for under $1,000, so the MacBook Air may stick around for another year or two in its current incarnation. No upgrades are expected, though.

Read more about the MacBook Air in our MacBook Air roundup.

AR Smart Glasses

We’ve heard multiple rumors suggesting Apple is prototyping augmented reality smart glasses and virtual reality headsets, but while these products are in development, a release is not expected for a couple of years yet.

An AR/VR headset built by VRvana, a company Apple purchased in late 2017

According to the most recent rumors, Apple is working on an augmented reality headset with a dedicated display, built-in processor, and a new “rOS” operating system based on iOS, with the “r” standing for reality. Apple is said to be aiming to finish work on an augmented reality headset by 2019 ahead of a launch it hopes will come in 2020.

A new version of ARKit is rumored to be in development, though, and that could come as soon as 2018. New ARKit functionality could include multi-player game support and support for persistent tracking. Apple in November bought its first VR/AR hardware company, VRvana. VRvana developed a virtual reality headset called Totem, which was designed to combine both augmented and virtual reality technologies in a single headset.

Read more about Apple’s work on augmented reality in our AR/VR roundup.

Apple Car Software

Apple is working on an autonomous driving system, but development on the software is still in the early stages and it’s not likely we’ll see any kind of finished product in 2018. Testing is ongoing on the roads around Apple’s Cupertino offices using autonomous driving software and specialized equipment installed in Lexus SUVs.

One of the Lexus SUVs Apple is using to test its autonomous driving software

While no finished products are expected, we may hear more about Apple’s work on autonomous software throughout the year. It’s not really clear when something will come of Apple’s efforts.

Read more about Apple’s work on autonomous software in our Apple Car roundup.